


Keeping Clean

by mockingpanems



Category: The Hunger Games, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: F/M, everlark, thg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-04-19 16:14:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4752743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mockingpanems/pseuds/mockingpanems
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Katniss takes Peeta out to the woods, and they share an intimate moment afterwards.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keeping Clean

*Katniss*

The morning sun leaks into our room, shining down on the floor and illuminating the sheets. The white silky curtains blow with the cool morning breeze rushing in gently from the window, chilling my fragile body. It is at that moment when I look down. The cozy orange comforter has fallen into my lap thanks to my sitting position, and I realize I am completely bare. Although my partner in crime is still sleeping beside me, with a quite adorable snore might I add, I still feel embarrassed. I climb quickly out of bed, searching for any sign of my clothing that had been haphazardly thrown on the floor the night before when our hearts were beating at a million miles an hour and our vision blurred with our own passion. I dig through the random articles of clothing on the rug. Peeta’s shirt. Peeta’s underwear. Ah, finally. Something of mine. My light beige tank top lies in a heap on the floor, and to my pleasant surprise my bra is right underneath it. Whew!

After finding and donning the rest of my clothes from the night before, I walk into the bathroom to assess my hair. My brown waves are tangled in an oily mess. I reach for the hair brush and slowly and painstakingly work the stray tangles out of my hair. With a swipe of a damp towel on my face and a quick brushing of my teeth, I tiptoe quietly back into the bedroom.

I move my side of the sheets upwards towards my pillow and sit down on the bed. I glance down at Peeta, who still seems to be deep in sleep. That is until I hear him stir. He hasn’t even opened his eyes until he stretches out his whole form, arching his back slightly, and he collapses back onto the mattress with a groan. “Good morning, sunshine.” I whisper, leaning down and kissing him on the cheek. “Good morning.” He replies groggily. He shifts his arms out from underneath the sheets, and glances back underneath to do a double take. He chuckles to himself. “What are you laughing about?” I tease with a grin. “I seemed to have lost my clothes from last night’s endeavors, my lady.” He responds with an accent I can’t quite place. He winks. The chuckle that I respond with shakes my torso with the force.

I lean down and reach over the corner of the bed to pull his boxers up from the floor. “Ah.” Peeta says. “Thank you darling.” Peeta slides out from underneath the sheets, revealing his bare form for a moment before slipping on his boxers. He turns his head behind him to grin at me. “What are you staring at, Everdeen?” I laugh. “Nothing, Mellark.” I whisper coyly. He stands suddenly and turns around, raising up his hands and placing one on his hip. A smirk slowly appears on his lips as he mutters “Do you… like what you see?” I can’t help but laugh out loud to that remark, looking up to the ceiling and clapping my hands as part of my reaction. He’s laughing too, and before I can give a response, he’s leaned back over on the bed and connected his lips to mine, balancing his weight on his clenched fists. As we kiss, he shifts his weight onto his knees and one of his hands gently reaches up to my face. My hands trace around the back of his neck and my arms cross behind it. We stay like that for a few counts before disconnecting our lips and smiling at each other, but we stay in the same position as I speak.

“Hey, I know what we can do today.” I whisper in his ear. He looks at me, clearly intrigued, his facial expression a nonverbal way of telling me to continue. “How would you like to walk in the woods and go to the lake my father used to take me to as a little girl?” Peeta reaches a hand up and tucks a lock of brown hair that has fallen in front of my face behind my ear. “I love that idea, Katniss. I mean, I wouldn’t want to intrude in a part of the woods that you and your father used to go to though. The memories and everything…I…” He trails off. “Peeta. Remember what we agreed a few days ago at the dinner table, as we were eating that delicious lamb stew that you made? You’re my family now, and I am yours. It would be just like going to the lake with my family.” He grins at me and tucks that pesky lock of hair behind my ear once again, kissing me on the cheek. “Okay, then. If you say so, let’s go.” He whispers, climbing off the bed. I help him scramble for his clothes, and he brushes both his hair and teeth quickly before meeting me downstairs. 

We’re just starting to head outside when Peeta grabs my wrist and lowers his voice to a whisper. “Katniss, do you think we’re going to look too suspicious wearing the same clothes two days in a row? Do you think people are going to know we had sex last night if we show up in town with the same clothes?” I can’t help but laugh at his concerns. “Peeta Mellark, look around you.” He takes a moment to look around the barren landscape, free of debris from the bombing now, and even a few houses being built for survivors that may want to return home. “What, are you nervous that old drunken Haymitch is going to tease us on how we had sex last night?” He looks down at the ground and smiles to himself before he starts up into a fit of laughter. His laughter soon becomes contagious and both of us are in a fit of giggles before we have even stepped off our porch. Peeta picks up an old beer bottle that has been sitting on our porch since Haymitch’s last visit, and does a drunken imitation of him, swinging the bottle around wildly. He mocks Haymitch’s voice, slurring his speech. “Hey, did you kids do anything last night? I think you were right about …” He throws in a fake hiccup for effect. “… Peeta liking to keep his window open while he sleeps.” My laughter is uncontrollable now, and after Peeta has cleared his throat and put down the beer bottle in the same place it was left, he laughs too. Now we look as if we ourselves really are drunk, stumbling around on our porch in loud fits of giggles.

We’re soon heading to the woods after we’ve calmed down from our laughing fit. Peeta is finally convinced that nobody will care if we wear the same outfit for two days, and our hands intertwine as we walk down the familiar route to the woods. Ever since the war ended, the laws of Panem have become a lot less strict, leaving more people with full bellies and happy hearts. They have also had new laws introduced, one of which is that all citizens of the woodland districts, including Twelve, are free to explore the woods and hunt as they wish, as long as they are killing game for food or trade, not for sport. I have been keeping to that law, trading my extra food with Greasy Sae for her own cooking purposes, and then I bring some home to Peeta so he can use it for dinner.

Another change that I myself have had to get used to is that they have allowed full access through the gate now, using the hole that I had used for years as an entrance to make an even larger entranceway. The hole has expanded to the size of a doorway, and now a person of any size can comfortably fit through the entrance to the woods. I recall a time during the war where I had pictured teaching Peeta how to get through the small entranceway, but I suppose that won’t happen now. There was even talk about the entire fence itself getting completely removed, but that hasn’t happened yet.  
We walk past the meadow, glancing down at our feet at the sprouting grass seeds that will make this place whole again someday. Our feet tread past a rushing stream, the noise calming over the silence that has fallen over us as I lead Peeta through the maze of trees. “Ow. Katniss...” He says, and I glance back at him only to notice that a pine tree branch has whacked Peeta in the face. “You’ll have to get used to that.” I tell him, pushing the branch out of his way. “As if you can’t tell already I’m not too used to these woods. I’m a baker, not a hiker.” He says with a grin. “Well don’t worry, darling. You have me!” I beam, smiling at him and batting my eyelashes. He chuckles. “Yes I do, Katniss. Yes I do.” I kiss him on the cheek before we continue walking hand in hand down to the water’s edge.

The morning rays of the sun glisten on the water of the vast lake. Peeta blinks his eyes a few times to adjust to the light as I sit down on a rock. He lifts his hand that once grasped mine and shields his eyes. “There’s no blinding sunlight down here, the mountain is blocking it.” I tell him, and he sits. He looks all around him, taking a deep breath through his nose and sighing. “It’s beautiful out here, Katniss. I see why you’ve snuck out here to escape Twelve for so many years. It’s clean out here. Pure. Twelve was so musty from all the coal. I mean, not so musty nowadays now that there’s really nothing here yet…” His voice trails off for the second time today. I scoot closer to him so that our shoulders touch and rest my head on his shoulder, grabbing his hand. “I don’t want to think about that. I just want to be in the here and now with you. Is that okay?” I whisper. “Of course.” He replies. “Always.”

“I love you, Katniss.” He murmurs after a while of silence. “I really do. Promise me you’ll remember that, even when the times do get tough.” He must be talking about his flashbacks, and the nightmares we often wake up to each night. “I promise, Peeta.” I whisper back. 

“I love you too.”

I lift my head up from his shoulder and watch as his smile grows. His fingers lightly touch my chin, and we kiss. It’s light and soft, but full of so much passion at the same time. Peeta and I like to keep things simple after all that has happened to us, and even the softest kiss can mean the world to us. A kiss between us doesn’t even have to involve any sort of visible passion like tongue to be intimate. That’s what I love about us.

We sit in silence after our lips part, and I look down on the rock to play with a few smaller pebbles wedged in a crack of the large boulder we sit on. My fingers dig inside a small crevice in the rock, full of dust and dirt and sand and pebbles. “Katniss, your fingernails are going to get dirty.” Peeta protests. “I’m a messy girl, Peeta.” I respond with a smile. “You should have seen the size of the knot in my hair this morning when I woke up. You’re lucky I pampered up before you woke up.” He laughs. “I never would have guessed you had a knot in your hair.” He replies. I smooth down my hair with my hand. “Exactly.”

Silence washes over us once more, before we agree to head back to the house to get cleaned up. On our way back, Peeta’s foot gets caught in a wedge in a rock, and he trips and falls, skidding his good knee. There’s only a little bit of blood, but quite a lot of dirt remains on his knee as we walk back to Victor’s Village. As soon as Peeta shuts the door behind him and we’re inside, I dump my father’s leather jacket over the back of the couch and run my fingers through my hair. It’s oily and greasy and generally gross. I glance down at my fingernails, caked with dirt. Peeta’s glancing down at his dusty knee, and he makes a face of disgust when he runs his hands through his hair as well.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” He asks, a small smile slowly appearing on his face. I glance down at the floor as my own smile grows, and I look up at him and whisper “Bathtub?” We both nod simultaneously, and Peeta says “You know, Katniss. It doesn’t even have to be sexual, like we could literally just take a bath together.” I laugh. “I was thinking of just getting myself clean, so I’m glad we’re on the same page.” He slowly walks towards the staircase, and walks up a step before yelling, “RACE YA!” and bounding up the stairs as fast as he can with his artificial leg. I heard Peeta was a pretty fast runner before being chosen for the Games and getting his leg injured in the arena. I decide to give him the benefit of the doubt and let him beat me in the race to the bathroom attached to our bedroom. I wasn’t even going to try to beat him anyways.

Our bathroom is the more modest version of Capitol luxury. It’s white, with small grey tiles adorning the top of the shower. There’s a light granite countertop fixed with silver sinks. The bathtub sits in the middle, fixed with a movable showerhead to use while sitting in the tub. A few bottles of strange smelling soaps line a counter near the tub, and Peeta and I have only really gotten a liking to one of the scents. Hopefully they’ll bring a soap merchant to Twelve someday, so we don’t have to trek all the way to the Capitol to get more once this bottle runs out.

The water starts, and Peeta drops in a few drops of our favorite soap, the tub almost instantly starting to fill with bubbles. “I’m going to need you to help me take off my prosthetic.” Peeta tells me quietly. “Of course, darling.” I smile. We strip of our clothing, not even feeling too shy about it knowing we woke up this morning with nothing on anyways. I help Peeta ease into the water on one leg, which he soon protests is quite hot. “Oooohhhhh that’s hot!” “How hot is it, Peeta?” I tease. “SO HOT!” He yells. I shush him through my laughter. “Haymitch might be out feeding his geese now!” Both of us laugh at the thought of Haymitch feeding his geese, the usual routine of one goose escaping, him getting that goose back in, then another goose escaping right after that. “Eh, he won’t care. Now come on, get in here with me.” He motions with his hand for me to join him in the tub and reaches in front of him to shut off the water.

I slide in next to him, my back pressed up against his chest, my head resting on his shoulder as his hand reaches to hold me by my shoulder. Even after the fact that we have had sex, this is probably one of the most intimate things I have done with him. I say this only because I can feel the stump that once was a full leg underneath the water, and my naked form is pressed so closely to his. We aren’t even kissing, and yet this beautiful tension builds up inside me as we hold each other close.I sit up and reach down to the outside of the tub, grabbing a loofah from a basket. “Let’s get that dirt off your knee.” I suggest. The water sloshes as Peeta shifts to move his only full leg up so that his knee is out of the water. I grab the bottle that contains the precious soap and a few droplets fall on the loofah. I dip it in the water for a brief moment before offering it to Peeta. He shakes his head. 

“You do it, Katniss.”

I’m not sure why his statement throws me off a little, but it does. He seems to sense my angst, so he whispers “I trust you.” Almost as if he flicked a switch, my sense of anxiety is lifted, and I form suds with the loofah in my hand. Gently reaching out to his knee, I run the loofah across it a few times before what appears to be all the dirt has gone. “Now you.” He murmurs, taking the loofah from my hand and adding a bit of extra soap to it. He gently takes my hand and lifts it up so he can see it, and takes the light blue loofah and scrubs my fingernails. One by one with each hand, he travels to each individual finger. The feeling of one of my small fingers being held in his large hand is strange but comforting in a sense. I watch as he works, and as each finger is rid of the dirt caked underneath it.

“I saw the look on your face when you ran your fingers through your hair.” He admits. “Maybe we should get that cleaned up too.” I don’t protest. Something inside me has awakened from his touch. Perhaps the intimacy I feel with this moment is what is causing this feeling of… Desire? I can’t quite place it myself. 

He extends his arm to grab the small movable showerhead from the side counter of the tub. He holds down a small trigger, and water starts pouring gently out of the holes in the showerhead. He quietly runs the showerhead over my hair, getting it soaked with clean water. Peeta reaches for a different bottle, this time not full of bath soap, but of shampoo. He grabs a small handful of it and reaches up to my hair with the soap in his hand. This is where I can tell he has the hands of a baker, because his touch is smooth. His fingers work through my hair, gently washing out the oil and dirt from the woods. Once my hair is full of shampoo, he grabs the showerhead again and pushes the lever with his finger, rinsing out the soap as I squeeze my eyes shut. I feel this overwhelming sense of relaxation as he works, and I feel the need to repay the favor.

“There we go.” He whispers. I turn my head and kiss him on his jawline a few times. I repeat his previous words by muttering “Now you.” It’s my turn to reach over and grab the shampoo. I reach up and pump a bit of water onto his hair, turning his golden blonde locks slightly brown. I run shampoo across his head with my fingers, sudzing it up. I reach down and poke his nose with a soapy finger, and he laughs. He keeps the little bit of suds on his nose even after I have washed the shampoo out of his hair.

I look behind me after I’ve set everything down, and his ocean blue eyes lock with my grey ones instantly. Peeta leans in a little and kisses me, the touch of his lips feeling especially intimate in this moment. Water sloshes as I shift my position to get a more comfortable kissing angle. We hold each other and kiss in this position for a good while before we both notice the water has turned a quite gross shade of milky white. Time to get out, I guess.

I get out first, wrapping a towel securely around myself before offering a hand to get Peeta out of the water. I dry off the stump that used to be his leg before helping him get into his prosthetic. He wraps a towel snugly around himself before draining the water out of the tub and rinsing it as I dry my hair with another clean towel and brush it. He gives a few good shakes with a towel to his hair before it’s dry. Peeta sneaks out into our bedroom and comes back with a new pair of underwear for both of us, and two large shirts that both belong to him. “I figured you wouldn’t mind wearing one of my shirts.” He says with a smile. “I don’t mind at all.” I tell him honestly. We both slip the shirts over our heads before heading out into the bedroom.

Both of us sit on our bed, snuggled up close enjoying each other’s company for what seems to be the umpteenth time today. “That was a delightful bath.” Peeta murmurs. “I can’t help but agree.” I respond, and lightly kiss him on the nose. He kisses me on the cheek in response. “It was a good way of keeping clean.” He says. I smile in agreement.

“So what else do you want to do today?” I ask after a long period of silence. He looks down at me and smiles. “I just want to spend every possible minute of the rest of my life with you. Is that okay?” I grin at him, admiring his way with words that he has always had. 

“Of course… Always.” I murmur, and I feel that thing again.


End file.
